Andrew P Stucken- Registered: 22 Feb 2019
- Posts: 67
Is there such a thing as "the Dover accent"?
I think this is much more complicated than it used to be. There are several variants in my opinion.
(1) The old Dover accent, a more urban and less broad version of the rural burr I heard a lot growing up on a Kent farm. The legend that is Councillor Nigel Collor would be a prominent exemplar. Spoken by hardly anyone under 60.
(2) The "Dover yawl" - onomatopoeic, drawling and typically Kentish but more modern and urban version of (1) with little trace left of the burr. Another step towards a London influenced accent. Again spoken more by people of a certain age - probably too slow for frenetic 21st-century youth.
(3) Mangled mockney. A hybrid version of London and Kent. A broad church with some people speaking in a generic EastEnders type accent and a step further on in the Londonisaton process from (2). The drawling quality more or less gone.
(4) MLE/"Jafaican" - spoken almost exclusively by some members of ethnic minorities and a few pretentious white youths trying to look cool. Typical marker is the elongated "ah" sound that makes "eye" sound like "aaah" and gives rise to such examples as "Waaah-Faaah" for "Wi-Fi".
(5) An interesting, rarer and more middle-class variant spoken mainly by people in their 20s and 30s, seemingly more often female, that contains elements of an interesting reversion to a slight burr on some vowel sounds. Often accompanied by Australian-style rising intonation.
(6) Rarest of all - RP. Spoken by a tiny social "elite".
That's my take. And leaving out foreign accents, obviously. There may even be more subtle variants and sub-variants and mixtures of the above. Accents probably vary even from one estate to the next. I've heard there are people who can even pinpoint which street in London someone comes from by their accent, although I've never actually seen any evidence for this.
Dover certainly has a noticeably different accent from, for example, Thanet, where London influence is much more marked.
You can notice this slightly in Deal, which has flatter accent than Dover's slightly chewier version, and even, I believe, a little bit in Whitfield, where (1) is also marginally more prevalent.
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
The legend that is Councillor Nigel Collor would be a prominent exemplar.
Would that be when he was sober?
Reginald Barrington- Location: Dover
- Registered: 17 Dec 2014
- Posts: 3,205
ray hutstone wrote:The legend that is Councillor Nigel Collor would be a prominent exemplar.
Would that be when he was sober?
If You Didn't See it, It Didn't Happen !
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Arte et Marte
Bob Whysman- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 1,918
#3 . Mangled mockney seems to be the accent that I would say mostly fits the East Kent area mate.
Do nothing and nothing happens.
Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 2,900
Interesting. I've definitely come across 2 and 5, definitely never 4 and 6. As for the others, I'd have to hear them to see if I recognised them - it's a bit like describing birdsong.
What I can say is that, after around 30 years, I despair of teaching my Dovorian sons how to pronounce the word 'world'. Where I come from (and I resist the temptation to say either "where I do come from", or "where I comes from"), the pronunciation is: 'whirled'. My sons and, from what I can make out, most other Dovorians pronounce it as any of 'willed', 'wield', 'weld' or 'wold'. For Pete's sake people, there's an r in it!
A couple of other things that catch my ear are: "motorway" - used to describe any dual carriageway, "take over" - to go past the car in front, "everywheres" - all around (and effectively the same as "anywheres"*), and finally a love affair with "I said" - as in the sentence "so I said to him, I said, well, I said..."
* see also "anyways".
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(Not my real name.)
ray hutstone- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
Reginald Barrington wrote:If You Didn't See it, It Didn't Happen !
Don't disabuse my illusions so flagrantly, Reggie. I've never seen anything and nothing ever happens.
Matey- Location: Dover
- Registered: 11 Oct 2021
- Posts: 131
What about ‘like’ then?
Example - the car was, like, really fast.
That one seems to be everywhere’s. Ha ha
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Life without a dog is like a salad without lettuce.
Bob Whysman- Registered: 23 Aug 2013
- Posts: 1,918
An old London saying Button is ‘ I don’t boil my cabbage twice’ when asked for a repeat so you must be a Man of Kent!
Do nothing and nothing happens.
Matey- Location: Dover
- Registered: 11 Oct 2021
- Posts: 131
Here’s another one…
Literally.
Example - the sun was out and it was ‘literally’ boiling.
They all seem to say it, weird…
Life without a dog is like a salad without lettuce.
Andrew P Stucken- Registered: 22 Feb 2019
- Posts: 67
They literally all do ;)
I think it is both a kind of softener and for emphasis too -a linguistic device designed to show goodwill and that you are not out to threaten and at the same time literally to convey sincerity.
Tone of voice is not enough, clearly. Perhaps that's because we're trending towards a rat-a-tat monotone in the urban jungle, as English drifts from a rhythm-based to a stress-based language.
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Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 2,900
I can see 'literally' as an emphasis, but not really as a "correct me if I'm wrong/if you know what I mean" sort of thing. I noticed when I moved here long ago that people add 'she did' at the end of an account, presumably for emphasis too - as in "she went out to the shops today, she did".
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Matey- Location: Dover
- Registered: 11 Oct 2021
- Posts: 131
It's interesting how words like that catch on. Another example is totally.
example - it was 'totally' a lovely day.
Americans seem to use it a lot, maybe we copy via TV?
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Life without a dog is like a salad without lettuce.
victor matcham- Registered: 5 Oct 2021
- Posts: 868
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Sue Nicholas- Location: river
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,981
Agree Totally .Lost My Essex voice.Bit Of Cornish Now and again ,picked up odd words from my Thames Valley days?.
All men are my handsome
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Button- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 2,900
Over the weekend I heard the following and thought of this thread: "the second weld woah-a". Hm, so the r is silent again then!
(Not my real name.)
Pablo- Registered: 21 Mar 2018
- Posts: 614
Another habit peculiar to Dover is the shortening of the vowel in the word ‘seen’ so it sounds like ‘I sin it’.
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Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,571
But a lot of the comments you can hear country wide, not a Dover accent.
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,657
Dover's accent will always be slightly different as it is a mixture of Kent, London and whichever foreign accent a person picks up, that used to be mainly French now that element could be from almost anywhere.
When I lived in Suffolk Norfolk borders area I loved the way they said huge which sounded more like hoooge.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Matey- Location: Dover
- Registered: 11 Oct 2021
- Posts: 131
I heard a woman in Morrisons tell her husband this morning to 'shut ya marf', I think she could be from 'sarf' London or somewhere 'abart' there!
Life without a dog is like a salad without lettuce.
Matey- Location: Dover
- Registered: 11 Oct 2021
- Posts: 131
Another one is ‘fink’. So many people say everyfink, instead of everything , it’s ‘orrible…..
Life without a dog is like a salad without lettuce.